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About Vestibular Disorders

What is a Vestibular Disorder?

The vestibular system includes the parts of the inner ear and brain that process the sensory information involved with controlling balance and eye movements. If disease or injury damages these processing areas, vestibular disorders can result. Vestibular disorders can also result from or be worsened by genetic or environmental conditions, or occur for unknown reasons.

Prevalence and Incidence

Because of difficulties posed by accurately diagnosing and reporting vestibular disorders, statistics estimating how common they are, how often they occur, and what social impacts they have range widely. Yet even the lowest estimates reflect the fact that vestibular disorders occur frequently and can affect people of any age.

One recent large epidemiological study estimates that as many as 35% of adults aged 40 years or older in the United States—approximately 69 million Americans—have experienced some form of vestibular dysfunction.1 According to the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders (NIDCD), a further 4% (8 million) of American adults report a chronic problem with balance, while an additional 1.1% (2.4 million) report a chronic problem with dizziness alone.2 Eighty percent of people aged 65 years and older have experienced dizziness,3 and BPPV, the most common vestibular disorder, is the cause of approximately 50% of dizziness in older people.4 Overall, vertigo from a vestibular problem accounts for a third of all dizziness and vertigo symptoms reported to health care professionals.5

"I can't do things I used to enjoy. How can a problem with my ear affect my mood and concentration?"

Symptoms of chronic dizziness or imbalance can have a significant impact on the ability of a disabled person to perform one or more activities of daily living such as bathing, dressing, or simply getting around inside the home, affecting 11.5% of adults with chronic dizziness and 33.4% of adults with chronic imbalance.6 The painful economic and social impacts of dizziness are significantly underestimated.5

Vestibular disorders not only profoundly affect adults, but also children. Once thought to be exceptionally rare, pediatric vestibular disorders are receiving increasing attention from clinicians as an overlooked problem.7 In addition to impairments of motor development and balance, vestibular deficits may cause poor gaze stability that inhibits children from learning to read. Despite new awareness of pediatric vestibular disorders, children are currently not typically screened for them, and as a result frequently fail to receive medical treatment.

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Thanks to VEDA, vestibular disorders are becoming recognized for their impacts on people's lives and our economy. We see new diagnostic tools and research studies, more accessible treatments, and a growing respect for how life-changing vestibular disorders can be.

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Ko C, Hoffman HJ, Sklare DA. Chronic Imbalance or Dizziness and Falling: Results from the 1994 Disability Supplement to the National Health Interview Survey and the Second Supplement on Aging Study. Poster session of the Twenty-ninth Annual Midwinter Meeting of the Association for Research in Otolaryngology, Feb. 5–9, 2006.